The Darkest Minds has everything you want in a dystopian book and more: psychic powers, anti-government organizations, rehabilitation camps and constant struggles for survival. Ruby is days away from turning 10, and in her society when you turn 10 you contract a disease that either kills you or gives you strange psychic abilities. As a result, Ruby has seen classmates die or be taken away before her very eyes. On the morning of her 10th birthday, Ruby finds herself a survivor. Expecting her special breakfast of pancakes, Ruby is met instead by a mother and father who no longer know her. Because parents are afraid of the children’s new powers they are rounded up and placed in concentration camps where those with more aggressive powers are exterminated.
Upon her arrival at camp, Ruby quickly realizes she doesn’t want to be examined and put into an orange, yellow or red faction and is somehow able to manipulate the doctor examining her to label her a “green." After six years of living a fairly mundane life in the rehabilitation camp where her only chance of survival has been to hide her powers, Ruby is offered the chance to escape with an anti-government organization. She soon realizes that this “escape” is just another opportunity for others to take advantage of her abilities and she runs. She quickly meets up with a group of survivors looking for a safe haven. Her only question now is who is she truly running from? She must decide to divulge the truth of her abilities to her new friends and protect them or leave and be alone forever.